Posts Tagged beauty pageants

Late last month, the news came out that the Nuestras Raices Little Miss Hispanic Delaware beauty pageant was dethroning its latest winner, Jakiyah McCoy, after she was unable to provide documentation of her “Hispanic heritage.” McCoy is black, and it appears that she was the only contestant required to prove her ethnicity, suggesting that Latin@s cannot look black.

Jakiyah McKoy won the Little Miss Hispanic Delaware pageant but her being black seems to be confusing to the people who run the pageant. The organization that sponsored the pageant Nuestras Raices Delaware has launched an investigation into McKoy’s “ethnicity” and has blocked her win in response to critics who are claiming McKoy is “not the best representative of Latin beauty.”

Samhita explained eloquently in The Nation why beauty pageants, namely Miss America, are damaging to women but seriously it’s really messed up that Delaware can’t even give the little black girl a crown she won because of our own close minded notions of what is Latin and what is beautiful.

Jakiyah McKoy won the Little Miss Hispanic Delaware pageant but her being black seems to be confusing to the people who run the pageant. The organization that sponsored the pageant Nuestras Raices Delaware has launched an investigation ...

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